I just finished reading Andrew Skurka’s new book about backpacking, The Ultimate Hiker’s Gear Guide. He should know a bit about that, he’s hiked 30,000 miles in the last ten years. I highly recommend the book.
I found a new paper on wilderness communications via a post on Clarke Green’s blog. It is a good resource, but it just doesn’t address the real situations I’ve experienced on treks. It seems to be written from the viewpoint of a professional rescuer, which leaves out a whole range of emergency situations that don’t involve rescue.
Paul Petzoldt didn’t include “wilderness survival” The Wilderness Handbook, but he did cover avoiding survival situations. Similarly, my preference is to avoid rescue situations, and reliable communication can help me do that.
I came home to find a hot-off-the-presses copy of One Night Wilderness: San Francisco Bay Area by Matt Heid.
This just became my top reference for backpacking in the bay area. I think the trip descriptions are even better than his previous book, and the focus on overnight trips is a great help for our Boy Scout trips. There are plenty of good books about day hikes—you don’t get to a 10th edition without being great (that would be Tom Taber’s book).
I’ve mentioned this pitch in a couple of other posts, but it deserves its own. This is the tarp pitch I use most often. The video below doesn’t name it and it isn’t listed in David Macpherson’s encyclopedic collection of tarp pitches, so I call it “The Cave”.
I learned the pitch from this YouTube video about pitching an 8×10 Etowah tarp. The video is short and clear, less than two minutes, and it is much better than reading a description. Watch carefully, you do not stake the rear corners. You stake midway between the center and the corners.
OK, everyone knows about this pitch, but there are some variations.
When you pitch it high and wide, it is the most room you can get for one pound of shelter.
How is lightweight relevant to Scouting? First, it’s about safety. Tired campers do risky things. Second, it’s about preparation and responsibility, rather than about throwing forty pounds of gear in a bag on Friday afternoon. Being a prepared, safe member of your patrol builds character and citizenship (Scouting aims #1 and #2) and mental fitness (part of aim #3). And lighter packs mean more fun, which matters because Scouting is a game (with a purpose).
For the Henry Coe campout with our troop this past weekend, I brought some bread mix so the Old Goat Patrol (the adults) could bake bread on sticks over the campfire. Specifically, this was the “Italian Stick Bread” recipe from The Back-Country Kitchen, essentially, from-scratch biscuit mix with Italian seasonings added.
I last made this when I was Grubmaster for the Raccoon Patrol in the early 1970’s. Back then I used biscuit dough that came in a can, the kind you whack on something to split open. That was more fun but this version tasted better.
I brought my Mountain Laurel Designs Speedmid to Philmont and my son brought his brand-new Black Diamond Betamid. The Betamid is interesting because it is decently light and probably the least expensive high-quality shelter you can find. A Scout is Thrifty.
We didn’t get a lot of rain, but we did get one good nighttime thunderstorm. Everybody stayed nice and dry.
Here is Mike (on the right) and his Betamid at Apache Springs:
Inspired by a fancy peg trowel created by Colin Ibbotson (PDF file from the Wayback Machine archive), I decided to do a somewhat simpler version. Using an SMC snow stake (or “Sno-Stake”), I glued a wine cork in as a handle using silicone seal.
My big Christmas present was a lightly-used Speedmid tent from Mountain Laurel Designs. It sleeps two people in comfort and weighs under a pound and a half with tent stakes and stuff sack. It uses a single trekking pole as a center pole. There is no floor, so I bring a big sheet of Tyvek (12 oz.) or a single person polycryo groundsheet from Gossamer Gear (2 oz.).
I use a breathable bivy (Ptarmigan from Titanium Goat) in case of condensation or blown rain. I also like to tuck my head inside the bivy when the breeze picks up. The bivy is essential for tarp camping, but I’m not sure it is worth carrying for use inside the Speedmid, even though it is only 7.5 oz.
Here is the tent set up at Eagle’s Aerie campsite in the Sunol Wilderness. It is set up very low to the ground, because we expected wind and rain. In less threatening weather, the tent can be pitched with the edges higher for more ventilation and more room inside.
Summer in the Sierras is probably the best place to try tarp camping, since you would do fine with no cover at all most nights in our dry California summers. Still, there was hail the week before we were up, so it is worth getting your shelter dialed in. Here are some moments from our eight day trip through the Hoover and Emigrant Wilderness Areas.
Prodded by Scoutmaster Jerry’s post “So what’s in my backpack?”, here is what I carried on our eight-day trek in the Hoover and Emigrant. My base weight (not counting food and water) is on the lightweight side at under 25 pounds, but with at least five pounds of gear that other people might not bring, mostly the camera and Crazy Creek chair.
I’ll list the gear by category in decreasing order of weight, but first, a photo of everything that went into my pack laid out on my groundsheet, taken on day 7 of the trek.
On our Boy Scout trek in the Hoover and Emigrant Wilderness Areas, about half the crew brought basins made from the bottom of a plastic milk jug. Cut it just below the handle, and you have a free, ultralight basin.
The original idea was to use it to keep the freezer bag meals from falling over while they were rehydrating, but we kept finding new uses.
The least-expected use was for a bucket brigade to fight a single-tree wildfire that we found. The initial containment and a satphone report were done by Troop 959 from San Diego, but they needed to move on to evac an ill crewmember. Our crew (Troop 14, Palo Alto) took over and spent most of an hour putting it all the way out.
This is what my feet looked like after a day hike up Mount Diablo. All that dirt came through the mesh in my shoes and through my thick wool hiking socks. My feet may be dirty, but they were dry, cool, and happy.
Nice oak floors, too.
The other times that I’ve climbed Mission Peak with the Boy Scouts, we’ve started from Ohlone College. That is a 3.5 mile, steep, shadeless, climb on dusty roads through cow pastures. This time, I took the advice of a nice person at the East Bay Regional Park District and we started from Sunol. Still mostly on roads, but lots more shade, the climb is spread out very evenly over 5.5 miles, and the views are of Mt. Diablo instead of cows.
Even better, we overnighted at the Eagle Springs trail camp. Here is the view north across the campsite:
Most Casual Observer 